


there’s a room where the light won’t find you

by victoriousdelights



Series: cutting me open then healing me fine [1]
Category: Villains Series - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Blood and Injury, M/M, Prompt Fic, canon who? don’t know her, he’s literally covered in it, like LOTS of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26414011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousdelights/pseuds/victoriousdelights
Summary: Victor gritted his teeth, swallowed the bile rising in his throat, wrapped his coat tighter around his body and pushed himself off the wall.He has made his choice.
Relationships: Eli Cardale | Eli Ever/Victor Vale
Series: cutting me open then healing me fine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919929
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	there’s a room where the light won’t find you

**Author's Note:**

> a little something the evervale writers group chat inspired me to write, based on this twitter post:
> 
> "The hero shows up at the villains doorstep one night. They're bleeding, scared and there's also a slightly dazed look in their eyes. They look up at the villain and they mumble "..I didn't know where else to go..". And collapse into the villains arms."
> 
> title from lorde - everybody wants to rule the world

  
_“And maybe I don't quite know what to say_  
_But I'm here in your doorway”_

_\- this is me trying_

  
Victor leaned heavily on the brick wall, hidden in the shadows of one of the countless back alleys of the city, desperately trying to steady his laboured breathing. He bit his lip when a pained whimper threatened to escape him, and grimaced when he tasted blood on his mouth.

He couldn’t stay there, he knew that, but his hotel was on the other side of the city, and he was well aware of the fact that in his state he wouldn’t be able to make it, not to mention that the second he’d enter the hotel the security would most likely jump him. Normally that wouldn’t concern him, but in that moment it could potentially prove to be an issue. Victor knew the extent of his capabilities, and he was aware that he wasn’t even in a condition to keep himself upright, yet alone to fight. 

He looked around, trying to asses his options, and the very moment his eyes landed on the other side of the road, where the street sign stood, a realisation hit him. Like a cold shower putting out the raging flames of pain that were consuming his mind a memory resurfaced, of a conversation from merely a day ago with the only somewhat competent informant in the city - and the undeniable facts that he was now faced with.

This was where Eli lived. 

As soon as the idea started forming in his head he was repulsed by it, disgusted with himself for even thinking about such a possibility because _he couldn’t let anyone see him like this, he couldn’t let_ Eli _see him so vulnerable_ — but his knees buckled underneath him, and he could stop the pain but he couldn’t stop blood loss. There were black spots dancing before Victor’s eyes, and he still remembered everything he learned in med school, knew that his vision was going to cloud soon, then eventually it would fade to black, and with it his consciousness. He couldn’t let himself risk passing out in a place like this. It was a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. He frowned involuntarily, hating how pathetic it sounded even in his mind. 

Nevertheless, Victor slowly turned down the dial on his pain. He knew that it was a reckless decision, in a situation like this pain was vital to his survival: it would tell him how much his condition was worsening, and how quickly. But despite all the risks that came with going numb, he needed his mind to be alert. He couldn’t manage that when pain was dimming all his other senses, proving him essentially helpless. He would just have to immediately turn it back on as soon as he was relatively safe, an experience sure to be unpleasant, but necessary.

And so Victor gritted his teeth, swallowed the bile rising in his throat, wrapped his coat tighter around his body and pushed himself off the wall. 

He has made his choice.

* * * *

Eli took great pride in his sharp senses and excellent reflexes, trained and polished to perfection by decades of meticulous observation of his surroundings. Even resting he was always on alert, so it was simply instinctive for him to reach for the gun the very moment he heard knocking on his door. He knew, from highly unpleasant personal experience, that the only people who would turn up on his doorstep at such an ungodly hour were EON, and they didn’t exactly make a habit of knocking politely. Their style usually involved kicking down the door and lots of unnecessary shouting, which usually ended up being as short-lived as the soldiers themselves. 

Gradually, he advanced towards the door.   
He wasn’t afraid of who he might see on the other side, no, the ability to feel fear left him a long time ago, the very same night he was reborn with ice flowing through his veins and body frozen in time.  
He was, however, unnerved. Whoever the person knocking was, they were an unexpected occurrence, an unknown variable, and therefore _potentially dangerous._

Cautiously, he opened the door and _oh_.

Right there on his doorstep, like a phantom of the past coming back to haunt him, stood Victor Vale.

And Eli’s mind was automatically hit with how _wrong, wrong, wrong_ everything about him was.

Victor’s ever-so-straight and stiff figure was coiled, curled in on himself. He was tense from overexertion, the unsteadiness somewhat concealed by the shadows of his coat, but betrayed in the tremble of his hands, the slight shaking of his legs. His perfectly styled hair was tousled (a sight that made Eli shiver, a feeling like electricity trickling down his spine, a weird warmness blooming in his body, all of which he dismissed as quickly as they made themselves known). 

His coat was hanging off his shoulders in a sloppy way that Eli would’ve never associated with Victor’s effortless elegance that was so familiar to him. It was wrapped tightly around his body in what Eli could only describe, as alarming as it was, as a protective, borderline defensive manner. 

When his eyes finally landed on Victor’s face and he felt something shift deep in him, a simultaneous wave of _want_ , a feeling dark and primal, born from the desire to see a predator helpless and vulnerable and defenceless, but also _worry_ , a thing forgotten, born out of years of caring about each other and sharing everything, their misfortunes and  
lives and dreams. 

Victor’s eyes, usually so cutting and bright were glazed over, bleary and unfocused and darker than the deepest void, so black that Eli could nearly see himself reflected in them.

His complexion was even more pale than normally, its striking smooth marble now an unhealthy, ashen white, littered with bruises and scratches, more ghost than a statue. Memories arose from the depth of Eli’s mind, all the instances when he saw that direful look on Victor’s face: the night of the overdose, of his arrest, of the high rise. 

All the times when Victor was dying.

And it all made sense when Eli finally got over his initial bewilderment at Victor’s disheveled condition and realised that Victor was covered in blood. _His own blood._

The longer Eli looked at him the more wounds and injuries he spotted, smears of blood on his pale lips, trails of it seeping from a cut on his cheekbone. The grip he had on his coat slackened and it fell off of him completely, exposing an ugly-looking bullet wound piercing his side, the fabric of his turtleneck soaked red around it. 

Victor met Eli’s eyes and for a moment he could see something flash through them, a shadow of indignation and bitterness, silent rage breaking through the barrier of pain. He opened his mouth and spoke quickly, as if he knew he was running out of time, bloody lips quivering, exhaustion seeping into every word:

"I didn’t know where else to go “

And it seemed like these few words, so simple yet to Eli so astounding in their meaning, cost him these last bits of strength that he managed to hold onto. Immediately after uttering them all the tension left his body, like some invisible string that kept him standing has been cut.

Victor Vale collapsed right into Eli’s arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to scream about evervale with me, hit me up on twitter @missjuliemary


End file.
